There is known a liquid discharge apparatus including a liquid discharge head (hereinafter referred to simply as “head”) having discharge ports (hereinafter referred to as “nozzles”) configured to discharge liquid. In recent years, this liquid discharge apparatus is used in various fields, for example, as an ink-jet recording apparatus.
In order to maintain discharge characteristics of the liquid discharge head of the liquid discharge apparatus, it is necessary to remove (cleaning operation) adhering matter (foreign matter such as liquid or residue) adhering onto a nozzle surface on which the nozzles are formed. For example, in Patent Literature 1 (see FIG. 9), there is disclosed a configuration using an air blow nozzle 204 to remove adhering matter adhering onto a nozzle surface 203 on which nozzles 202 of an ink-jet head 201 are formed.
Specifically, in Patent Literature 1, air is blown into the nozzle surface 203 from the air blow nozzle 204 moving along a movement direction, to thereby move (remove) the adhering matter adhering onto the nozzle surface 203. Further, the adhering matter moved by the air blow nozzle 204 is collected by an air suction nozzle 205 arranged away from the nozzle surface 203.
The nozzles may often be arranged in arrays on the nozzle surface. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 10A to FIG. 10C, a plurality of nozzles is arranged along a first direction in a first array 202a and a second array 202b on the nozzle surface 203. When the nozzle surface 203 is cleaned, the air blow nozzle 204 is configured to blow air while moving along the first direction, to thereby remove foreign matter 30(a) and foreign matter 30(b).